


Wide-Eyed and Caught in the Middle

by callista1159



Series: Trust in Time [4]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-05
Updated: 2014-11-05
Packaged: 2018-02-24 06:56:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2572277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callista1159/pseuds/callista1159
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequel to 'If You Wait', 'Walking This Line', and 'Metal and Dust' in the 'Trust in Time' series.</p><p>While off-world, Sam and Jack give into some major tension which has been building between them throughout season 8. Set after the events of Affinity, before Threads, as Sam starts to realise why she can't possibly stay with Pete. In this installment, Threads has just happened - we all know how that went - and Teal'c has been working his quiet magic to get Sam and Jack some alone time.</p><p>I don't own SG-1 or the Stargate but if I did, I'd make them do dirty, dirty things for my own entertainment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wide-Eyed and Caught in the Middle

Jack had been grilling meat on the barbeque when Carter strolled around the edge of his house like a woman on a mission. He tried to ignore the jolt through his chest as she smiled a little at him, and nearly dropped his beer when he remembered that Kerry was inside and yeah, talking with Carter had brought the memory of that night on the planet back and he wondered what the fuck he did to deserve the cosmic irony of finding a beautiful, smart woman who could maybe love him a little bit just at the moment when he realized that he might still actually be completely and blindly infatuated with his second in command.

He was still wondering how the hell to smooth that one over when Carter’s phone rang and everything went to hell anyway.

* * * * * * *  
So now Kerry has metaphorically and literally shut the door on their relationship, the SGC has narrowly avoided the self-destruct (again), Daniel has shown up butt-naked in his office, Jack has insisted that Sam take a few days to mourn Jacob, and Jack is left wondering why everything at the SGC has to go boom at the exact damn time.

He liked Kerry a lot. A lot a lot. But even Jack can admit to himself that if Kerry could intuit something going on between him and Carter then they are probably not hiding things as well as they think they are. Whatever it is that they might be hiding. Or not. From themselves.

He gets _confused_.

It’s actually Teal’c who suggests a trip to the cabin. Jack knows that Teal’c isn’t in it for the fishing so he suspects the big guy knows exactly what he’s suggesting, but hell, the weather’s good in Minnesota at this time of year and they really do need a break.

And somehow, Jack will never quite remember how it came about, but somehow it ends up that he and Carter are heading up to the cabin early, before Teal’c and Daniel who will join them in a couple of days. He’s not sure how he feels about spending time alone with Carter after everything that’s gone on in the last few weeks. She’s already told him that she’s thinking about calling off the wedding, but then with everything that happened with Jacob, she’s gone quiet on the issue and he hasn’t wanted to pressure her. 

So it’s with a not-unfamiliar sense of bafflement that Jack appears to be sharing a flight to Minnesota with his smart, hot, recently-bereaved, engaged 2IC. They’re not sitting next to each other or anything, but he can see the curve of her arm a few rows ahead of him and he reflects that Teal’c is a little bit more evil than Jack usually gives him credit for, to have engineered this.

It’s not long before they’re hustling through the airport with their cabin baggage and Jack takes them on autopilot toward the car rental place that gives him a good deal on account of his scuffed USAF holdall and the not-inconsiderable amount of business he’s put their way over the last decade. Carter looks a little pale, but happy enough to be there and soon enough he’s swinging their bags into the back of the rental truck and wondering if the radio could fill the silence between them for the whole two hour drive to the cabin.

They make a little small talk but mostly Carter sits quietly while he points out a few landmarks. She hums along to the radio once or twice and he can’t even begin to know what to do with that. By the time they’ve stopped to pick up some groceries and she’s grabbed a not-inconsiderable amount of wine and two excellent steaks, he’s starting to feel more than a little on edge and like he’s missing out on the punch-line. But she seems to be working up to something and he doesn’t miss that she starts as if she has something to say, more than once, and then lapses back into staring in the middle distance. He hopes to god she isn’t going to tell him that she’s requesting reassignment, or that she’s not coming back after the wedding.

It’s the fourth or fifth time that she looks like she’s going to say something without actually managing to form any words, and he loses it completely and barks “Carter! Whatever it is that you have to say, you need to be saying it about now. Seriously. Say it.”

And that’s when she gives him one of those mega-watt smiles that starts a little shyly and ends up making his throat close up and a spot in his chest start to hum a little.

She says, simply and not without a little uncertainty: “I’ve ended things. With Pete, I mean. Actually, I ended it just after my dad – well, after my dad. And I haven’t really known how to tell you or if I should tell you but we’re on our way to the cabin and I just thought you kind of deserved to know.”

The hum in his chest becomes a roaring as he tries to run through whatever the hell it is that Carter might mean by telling him this now. And he’s a little hurt that she didn’t tell him straight away but it’s not like she hasn’t had other life-changing stuff going on in the past few days, is it. And she’s looking at him like she probably needs some kind of response and he realises that he’s been gripping the steering wheel with some kind of death-grip. Which she has probably noticed.

Jack takes a look at the road and very carefully and deliberately slows and pulls over.

And he can’t stop the grin that’s nudging past his lips as he takes a good long look at her and reflects that whatever happens now, he is a lucky, lucky man.

“Yeah. I, um – well, that’s _news_ , Carter. And I’m sorry that all this has been going on and I haven’t, y’know, been here for you,” – at this he vaguely gesticulates back and forth between the two of them – “but I guess then you kind of deserve to know that Kerry and I won’t be, um, taking things any further. Something – _someone_ \- I couldn’t quite get past and she deserved more than that, I guess.”

Carter manages to look simultaneously sympathetic, surprised, and ever so slightly elated when she hears that, which Jack thinks is quite a thing to witness. Then she gifts him with a blinding smile, and she’s backlit by a spectacular blue sky, illuminated, as she says, “So – cabin, then?” and out of nowhere at all her hand finds his knee and squeezes a little and he knows he’s completely done for.

So all he can do really is get back on the road to the cabin, with Carter, his smart, brilliant, beautiful second in command. Who is currently humming as her thumb makes tiny circles on the inside of his knee.

A lucky, lucky man.

**Author's Note:**

> I got a little side-tracked by fact-checking canon for the events of season 8 and it turns out that I _really_ wouldn't have written it that way.
> 
> When you look at the last scene of Threads, you just know that they're doing it, right?
> 
> I've probably exhausted the relevance of London Grammar song lyrics to any fic I could write ever again, but in the interests of consistency, and actually managing to post something, here we go and I'm borrowing lyrics from 'Strong' for the title.


End file.
